May 2003 : a visit to the
Rollei factory in Braunschweig by the Dutch Rollei Club.
by Ferdi STUTTERHEIM
The original version of this text has been posted to the Internet
discussion group, ``Rollei Users Group'', RUG, here, on May 12, 2003:
http://digistar.com/rollei/2003-05/0451.html
-------------------
Thursday morning at 08.00 am I left my home village of Drachten, The
Netherlands, for the nearly 400 km trip to Braunschweig,Germany. The first
stage was my old university city of Groningen to pick up Huib, who joined me
on the trip. Then to Nieuweschans, Bremen, Hanover and Braunschweig were we
arrived at our meeting place: the Park and Ride in Salzdahlumer Strasse [1] at
12.20 p.m. The rest of the gang, all members of the Rollei Club of the
Netherlands, arrived shortly after and we made the short stroll to Number
196, Rollei Fototechnic, where we were received by Mr Dietmar Kanzer,
Rollei´s Sales Chief.
After lunch Mr Hubert Schmidt showed the present product line. Then it was
time to visit the Rollei Museum. This museum was started by owner Samsung
only in 1996. It consists of a former private general collection of cameras
with some later additions. Rollei content is limited.
Afterwards it was time to check in at Hotel Deutsches Haus in the city
centre. At 7 p.m. it was time for the traditional dinner at the Brewery and
Pub "Zum Löwen".
Next morning at 10 a.m. it was time to visit the Rollei Factory. Rollei
still use the oldest buildings of the factory complex connected by bridges,
well known from old and new pictures [2]. Other buildings now belong to
different companies. The left hand building houses management and R and D.
The larger, right hand building is the actual factory. Metal parts
production is at ground floor. This is a mixture of old and new. Some old
tools from the Fifties, relatively new machines by Heckler und Koch (20
years old) and new computer programmed CNC machines (Matra and others). The
new machines are able to perform a number tasks in a sequence. A complex
part can be finished by one machine in one run. Older machines do just one
task at the time. It will take many runs to finish a part.
Rollei is in the process of rationalising production. Production of simple
parts is being outsourced. There is still a lot to gain. We saw quite a
number of people performing quite simple tasks like drilling a hole or
bending a part.
The first floor houses optics production and assembly lines. Optics is quite
modern with new computer programmed glass cutting machines. The old
Voigtländer stuff is gone now [3]. Lens coating was outsourced recently when the
old Leibolt-Heraeus machine broke down. HFT coating is now done by a
specialist firm. Mr Kanzer told me they were hiring small companies around
Wetzlar (split of from Leitz) for coating and other tasks. A completely
refurbished production room was empty. This was meant for the production of
electronic prints. These prints are outsourced too. The new room will house
lens assembly shortly.
All this means that quite a number of square metres in the factory are free.
Rollei will abandon the office building and move offices to the factory
building. The old office building will be let.
Except for TLRs, the assembly lines are modern. Workers perform a number of
tasks. Slide projector production is limited to Winter times; they do not
sell in Summer. So now it was time for TLR production! Some 20 per day, a
100 per week. Thursday must have been a day for Rolleiflex FW (New
Rollei-Wide) production [4]. We saw 20 new Wides at final inspection. Production
of Bay IV lens hoods is scheduled for the third week of May and BayIV lens
caps will be finished in early June. Today FX production was on. This is
still the old Fifties assembly line. It became quite clear why a Rolleiflex
is expensive. A lady was hand painting the cutting edges of leather
finishing in the right colour. Otherwise the cutting edges would show
unfinished leather.
6008 Assembly runs separate from TLR and is modern. Workers have a carousel
with frames in front of them. Next to them a number of trolleys with parts.
They take a frame form the carousel end add one or more parts. Then the
frame is replaced and the carousel is turned to get to the next frame. And
so on. Every day they start filling their carousel with frames and look for
the trolleys with the right parts. After this they can remain seated for a
few hours. At the end of the day the partly built-up frames are moved to
next station. Assembly stations can easily be adapted to produce different
models.
So, quite a number of changes since my last visit, two years ago [5]. I am
convinced these changes are inevitable. Rollei also abandoned development
and production of professional digital cameras. The life cycle of these
cameras is too short for Rollei. It is left to electronic firms. That should
worry us. Imaging is taken over from optical firms like Rollei (and Nikon
and Canon?) by electronics companies like Sony and HP! Rollei consumer
digital cameras are bought from others. Maybe professional models too.
Rollei remain active in the field of digital backs for the 6000 series.
At 1 p.m. it was time for lunch and time to pick up our purchases. I ordered
a BayIV lens cap and a BayIV lens hood for my Classic Rollei Wide [6] for
delivery in June. They are copies of the old ones. We saw the prototypes.
There are two small changes, the new hens hood is machined in one piece from
one solid aluminium block. The old one consisted of a sheet metal hood
fitted in a solid mount. The inside of the hood now shows ribbings.
I would like to thank Rollei for their hospitality.
Ferdi Stutterheim,
Drachten, The Netherlands.
ferdi@stutterheim.nl
http://www.stutterheim.nl
http://www.rolleigraphy.org
Additional notes
-
[1]
- The Rollei factory has been located in the same street
since before World War II.
- [2]
- For pictures, see Claus Prochnow's books, very well
illustrated. The reader will find complete bibliographical
references to these books at the end of the ``Rollei-FAQ document''
on Ferdi Stutterheim's web site,
http://www.stutterheim.nl/rollei/faq.html
- [3]
- In 1972, Rollei has acquired the Voigtländer brand name
and factory in Braunschweig, formerly within the Zeiss Group. Since
this date, Rollei has the know-how for developing photographic
optics, today Rollei fabricates several lenses under a Zeiss
licence. Before 1972, Rollei used to purchase all photographic
lenses either from Zeiss or from Schneider-Kreuznach, a long-term
partnership which continues nowadays.
- [4]
- Production of the Rollei Wide twin-lens reflex has
restarted in 2003, with a new super-angulon 50mm lens from
Schneider.
- [5]
- During a previous visit to Braunschweig in 2001, Rollei
left little hope to the passionate ``rolleiphiles'' of the Rollei
Club Nederlands that new Rollei Wides and Teles would be back some
day. There were technical difficulties, among others the fact that
some particular optical glasses proper to the original 55mm Zeiss
distagon design for the Rollei TLR had been discontinued for a long
time. It is well-known that recently Zeiss had to re-design the
famous 38mm biogon, because the stock of some old kinds of glasses
was empty and had to be replaced by newer kinds of glasses for
environmental reasons. Meanwhile, a new demand by Japanese customers
for the Rollei Wide has changed things and eventually allowed for
the renaissance of this rare classical TLR camera.
- [6]
- Ferdi Stutterheim's classical Rollei Wide was
fabricated in the 1960's. The camera was fitted with a Zeiss 55mm
distagon lens. It is the only Rollei lens using the bayonet size IV
for filters and lens hoods. The new Rolleiwide of 2003 has the same
bayonet IV. The classical Tele Rollei TLR uses a bayonet III.
HTML version by Emmanuel Bigler May 21, 2003
This document was translated from LATEX by
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